Motmot

Motmots eat small prey such as insects and lizards, and will also take fruit. In Nicaragua and Costa Rica, motmots have been observed feeding on poison dart frogs. It was, however, wrongly believed in the past that the motmot shaped its tail by plucking part of the feather web to leave the racket. This was based on inaccurate reports made by Charles William Beebe. It has since been shown that these barbs are weakly attached and fall off due to abrasion with substrates and during routine preening. There are, however, also several species where the tail is "normal", these being the tody motmot, blue-throated motmot, rufous-capped motmot, and the Amazonian populations of the rufous and broad-billed motmots. == Taxonomy ==

A fossil genus of Oligocene coraciiform from Switzerland has been described as Protornis; it might be a primitive motmot or a more basal lineage. A partial momotid humerus found in early Hemphilian (Late Miocene, c. 8 mya) deposits in Alachua County, USA has not been named; it might belong to an extant genus. The number of species in each family is taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC). }} ==References==